1 held, 5 suspects detained for blasts

Five people, including a woman, were detained yesterday from Patna and Gaya and interrogated by the NIA in connection with the serial bomb explosions at Bodh Gaya’s Mahabodhi temple in Bihar, police officials said. Another man detained on Sunday from Gaya district has been formally arrested.

On the run: Cops have issued a lookout notice for six people who had been working with temple’s management committee for the last six months and were suspected to be absconding since the explosions

Four of the detained suspects had stayed at a hotel in Bodh Gaya on Saturday night and checked out within an hour of the explosions early on Sunday, said police sources, adding that investigators narrowed down on the suspects using the CCTV footage of 16 cameras at the temple.

Chandan Kushwaha, a police official from Gaya district, confirmed the arrest of suspect Vinod Mishtri, who was detained on Sunday.

Another Bihar Police official, who did not wish to be named, said, “Four people, suspected to be involved in the serial bomb blasts, were detained in Patna city and a man was detained from Sonbarsha village in Gaya district.”

Those detained in Patna were identified as Gunjan Patel, Hasan Malik, Anand Prakash and Priyanka. From Gaya, Dashrath Yadav was detained by the investigators, the official said.

“Four of those detained stayed at Tathagat International hotel in Bodh Gaya Saturday night and they visited the temple premises early Sunday... they checked out from the hotel within an hour after the serial blasts,” a police official said.

According to police officials, after their detention the five suspects were taken to an undisclosed place for interrogation by a NIA team.

They were among the six people spotted in the footage and suspected to be involved in the bombings in which two people were injured, he said.

A police official involved in scanning the footage said the suspects’ movements close to the temple gate and wall, hours before the blasts, were captured on the CCTV cameras.

The footage showed that three people entered the temple premises through unspecified entry points and two others stood near the gate close to the car they came in. One of them, who is the tallest, carried a bag on his shoulder, he said.

But the poor quality of the footage of 16 functional CCTV cameras was posing a problem for investigators, said an official. Police had issued a lookout notice for six people who had been working with the Bodh Gaya’s Mahabodhi Temple Management Committee for the last six months and were suspected to be absconding since the explosions, a police official said.

“The look-out notice was issued on the information from the committee,” a police official said. The investigators said some of the “missing” former employees were the suspects spotted in the CCTV footage.

Bihar to set up ATS to fight terror Two days after serial bomb blasts, the Bihar government yesterday approved a proposal to set up an anti-terrorism squad (ATS) in the state. Cabinet Secretary Brajesh Mehrotra said that the state cabinet has cleared the 344 posts for the ATS. “Now appointment for the posts has been sanctioned,” he said. The state government had first mooted the idea to set up an ATS in 2006.